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Connie, however, had started screaming as soon as Ruger had fired his gun and was still screaming, yelling, “Mark!” over and over again. Ruger spun and leveled the gun at her. “Shut your mouth, you stupid cunt!”
Like her husband’s, Connie’s screams turned to ice in her throat, but as if the desperate forces in her needed to escape in some way her body snapped into action and she hurled herself off the couch and flew like a bird to Mark, who was shaking his head stupidly, brushing at dried roses and baby’s breath and bits of broken crockery. Ruger stepped back and let her go, allowing her to flutter around her husband like a flight of nervous sparrows, touching and probing and kissing and stroking with darting nervous hands. All of it amused Ruger, who smiled. In as loud a voice as his mangled larynx could manage, he said, “Now, everyone just shut the fuck up!” He spaced the words out to give them maximum weight and effect.
The Guthrie house became as quiet as a tomb in less than one second, and Ruger actually sighed with pleasure. He looked at Val, who was gripping the armrest of the sofa with white-?knuckled fingers. She had managed to disentangle herself from her father, who looked gray and sweaty. “Who’s the geek?” he asked, jerking his head in the direction of the young man. “Your brother-?in-?law?”
Val frowned in confusion. “What? Uh…no, he’s my brother. Mark. ”
Ruger also looked confused. “Brother? Hey, I know this is the sticks and all, but I didn’t think brothers and sisters actually married out here. ”
Val shook her head, not getting the point.
“Isn’t Donna Reed there your sister?”
“Huh? Oh! Oh, no,” said Val, understanding now, “she’s my sister-?in-?law. She’s married to Mark, my brother. ”
“Ah,” Ruger said again.
By this time, Connie had helped Mark sit up and had brushed all the debris off him while constantly whispering, “He’s got a gun, he’s got a gun. Are you hurt? Don’t do anything, he’s got a gun. ”
Mark looked up at Ruger, his face lined with pain and glistening with a patina of new sweat. “What the hell’s going on here?” Mark demanded, but with the pain the question carried no authority and came out as a wheeze.
“Are you okay?” Guthrie asked tightly.
“I…” Mark began, and then stopped, frowning deeply and looking quizzically at Ruger. “Who the hell are you? And…did you shoot at me?” he asked in a voice that betrayed his total amazement at such a possibility.
“No,” whispered Ruger. “If I had you’d been fucking well dead. ” He smiled. “I shot at the door. ”
Val saw the moment when Mark’s shock was overtaken by the first moment of clarity and then she saw the fear take hold. His eyes were wide and he stared at Ruger and at the gun.
Mark snapped his head around to where his father sprawled half on and half off the couch. He saw the blood on his father’s face and Mark’s own face went white. “Dad? What’s going on?”
“Be still, Mark…don’t do anything. Just do what h
e says. ”
Ruger kicked the foot on one of Mark’s outstretched legs. “You’re Mr. Rotary Club, am I right?”
“I’m…who did you say?” He was not following any of this. “What the hell is—”
“It’s okay, Mark,” said Val. “Just listen. ”
Staring at her and then back at his father, Mark said, “My God! Val? Dad? What happened to you? What happened to your faces? Did he do this?”
“They’re fine,” said Ruger. “Everybody’s fine. ”
“Did you do that to them?”
Ruger shrugged as if to say these things sometimes happen.
“Do you want to tell me what the hell this is all about?” His words promised a demand that his tone of voice could not back up. It came out somewhere between a growl and a squeak, like a teenage boy whose voice was breaking.
“Sure,” Ruger said affably, “but first, why don’t you and your little wifey just go and join everyone else on the couch?”
Mark looked about to say more, but the black eye of the pistol stopped him, and the black eyes of the gunman withered his will. He let Connie help him up and they moved slowly, and very carefully, over to the couch, hissing occasionally at the pain in his groin. With the four of them it was a very tight fit. Val sat on the left end next to her father, and Connie did her best to try and vanish between the elder and younger Guthrie men. Mark examined his father’s face. “That’s a pretty bad cut, Dad. ”
“Leave it be,” Guthrie murmured.
“But, Dad—”
